I applied online and asked my friend to give me a refer during the application period. I was contacted by a recruiter about a week later and finished a questionnaire of which team I'm interested and some of my background. Then as every intern did, I was put into the candidate pool. You'll be there for up to 6 weeks. If there is a host like to move forward with you, you will get an interview. If not, you fail. The experience of recruiting was so nice, since the recruiter emailed me saying I wasn't forgotten by Google because I didn't get a response for 3 weeks. Fortunately, I was contacted by her because a host in NYC would like to have an phone interview. You'll get the first name of the host and a sentence about the project they want you to involve. The interview took about 45 mins as a pretty normal one. She described the project and asked 2 behavior questions. Then I spent about 20 mins for a portfolio review. Last but not least, questions for interviewers. After about a week, I was told that she'd like to move forward and got the offer.